Legalised vampires

[ffutures]

My last few BtVS / CSI crossover stories have set up a world which knows about the supernatural, slayers, etc. and in which vampires have some minimal "human" rights in some US states - no staking without due cause (or a moderately good excuse) but you have to avoid human blood and have a tracer chip inside your body. While I haven't said this explicitly, I think that Willow has a hand in designing the chips, and that they transmit a magical warning (or even release a few CC of holy water) if a vamp falls off the wagon. Whether or not this is legal is open to debate...

OK, what about property rights? What happens to the things you own when you become a vampire? Legally you're dead, and lawyers will not get around that one easily. What about bank accounts, investments, etc.; can you leave things to yourself, and what happens to your debts etc.? Could you set up a trust fund, while alive, to give you money once you're dead. Why would you want to?

Another question; could you give evidence about things that happened when you were alive, and would it be legally acceptable?

And yes, I am vaguely thinking about another story - but I really don't want to rip off the Anita Blake universe, so I'm assuming that most of the problems are still being tested by the courts and that current US law mostly decides things.

All suggestions gratefully received.

Comments

[dsample.livejournal.com]

The vampires would probably all have their lawyers arguing that they're the same person. Same finger prints, DNA, etc. They have the full memories of their pasts, and so on.

Their heirs would all have their lawyers arguing that the vampire is a different person.

If vamps are different people, it brings up a novel way of "declaring bankruptcy" A soulless businessman finds himself way over his head in dept, so he squirrels away some hard assets in places where his debtors won't be able to find them, and gets himself vamped. He's dead, all debts get settled from his estate, and businessman goes on, just like before, only now he's literally soulless, instead of just figuratively.

For the testifying thing, since the vamp has all their memories intact, they should be able to testify about events that happened before they were vamped. Such testimony should carry as much weight as a vamps testimony about events that took place after they were vamped.

If a vamp *is* the same person, is a 200 year old vamp owed 70 years of back-payments from Social Security?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

One of the points you've made is going to be important in the story if I write it - won't say which...